


Five little monkeys (jumping on the bed)

by toomuchplor



Series: Schmoop Bomb: The Series [6]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: 5 Things, Kid Fic, M/M, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-07
Updated: 2012-05-07
Packaged: 2017-11-05 00:04:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/399705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toomuchplor/pseuds/toomuchplor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur can also name every single character in the Night Garden. (Yes, even the Pontipines and the Haahoos.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five little monkeys (jumping on the bed)

**Author's Note:**

> It's a Five Things fic in the Schmoop!Bomb series.

1.

“Forgive me, I confess I haven’t kept in touch,” Yusuf says, clasping both hands around Arthur’s outstretched palm. “Has Mr. Saito proven less powerful than he’d claimed?”

Arthur’s eyebrows pop up and then his brow furrows with brief, polite confusion. “Sorry?” he says.

Yusuf takes another, closer look at Arthur: the exhausted slouch of his shoulders, the dark circles under his eyes. It’s enough to make Yusuf reevaluate his first impression; Arthur doesn’t look as bad as he had when he was on the run with Cobb, when they’d pulled off inception.

He looks worse.

“It’s nothing,” Yusuf says, and waves it away, uses the back of his wrist to knock the cat from his counter, slides across the three vials of his latest somnacin formula. “Now, listen closely, the dosages are a little different for this formulation,” he says, back to business, “but I think you’ll find the side effects are much more manageable.”

2.

“Fucking paper bags,” says Ariadne, and barely gets a knee up in time to stop the inexorable slide of the groceries from her arms. Arthur comes to the rescue, smooth and calm, and they face the elevator doors in silence while they wait for the elevator to arrive. “No one uses paper bags in Canada,” she says, making conversation. “You know, tar sands, raping the planet: it’s all part of our national agenda.”

“Right,” says Arthur, mouth quirking. Fourth day on the job, and he’s not doing the thousand-yard stare anymore. Ariadne wonders, irritably, who gets _more_ rested pulling multiple all-nighters? Sometimes she can’t honestly make herself believe that once she’d thought Arthur was handsome and charming, Arthur with his sticky-out ears and tired eyes and his inability to stand still, ever.

“Stop it, you’re going to bruise the bananas,” she snaps, annoyed by Arthur’s back-and-forth sway-sway-swoop. “Jesus. Time to switch to decaf.”

“I’m—“ starts Arthur, scowling, and then he seems to notice how he’s been fidgeting side to side like a human pendulum, because he comes over all taut and awkward like the soldier he must have once been. “You know, you were never this insubordinate when Dom was in charge.”

“Yeah, I only invaded his subconscious and blackmailed him into telling me his darkest secrets,” Ariadne says, deadpan.

Arthur’s reflection meets her gaze in the mirrored elevator doors; he looks, for all the world, surprised and puzzled.

“What, did you miss that whole thing?” she asks, genuinely surprised. “Wait, _how_ did you miss that whole thing, anyway? You’re the hot shit point man — it’s your job to notice that stuff.”

Arthur’s jaw flickers and he jostles the bag of groceries again, bounce bounce bounce, his weight shifting from one side to the other. The elevator pings and the doors glide apart. As they enter, he mumbles something vague about being distracted at the time, and then the bottom of the paper bag gives out and Ariadne’s too busy chasing oranges around the floor and yelling to pursue the matter.

3.

To his own dismay, Michael Richard Ellis Hornbeck III is a bleeder. When the guy — the security specialist, the skinny man with the expensive shoes, Hornbeck didn’t bother noting his name — when he pulls the IV line out after the first day of training, Hornbeck’s inner forearm trickles red and fast and thin. All his board members look on with barely-suppressed amusement; no one else is bleeding out.

“It happens,” says the specialist, leaning in close, pressing a cotton ball to the opened vein. “Put pressure on it, bend your elbow.”

Hornbeck puts on pressure, bends his elbow, and tries not to be too obvious about how he sags back into his rolling leather chair. Thirty seconds ago he’d been learning how to put a gun to his own temple, how to pull the trigger steady and fast; now he’s feeling woozy over a little needle prick.

“Here,” says the specialist, and comes back over with an alcohol swab and a band-aid still in its wrapper.

Probably, Hornbeck reflects five minutes later, probably this is some kind of test he’s meant to pass. They’re paying this guy five figures a day for the training sessions, and the board member who did the research insists he’s not just the best game in town, but the best in the world. But if this wasn’t the only guaranteed way to protect the minds and secrets of Hornbeck Consolidated against their cutthroat competitors — 

If only it wasn’t so, Hornbeck would tell this douchebag in the Italian loafers to go fuck himself. 

So Hornbeck’s a bleeder — so what? That’s no reason to slap a Toy Story band-aid on his arm in front of god and everyone.

“I have Cinderella if you’d rather,” says the security specialist without a flicker of humor.

Definitely some kind of a test. Hornbeck shakes his head and stops picking at the edge of Buzz Lightyear’s face.

4.

“You know, given the terms on which we parted last,” Nash says, “I had expected a little more accommodation from you, Arthur. As in, less holier-than-thou Cobb bullshit? As in, you’re the point man, do your own fucking 2 a.m. reconaissance?”

Arthur doesn’t say anything in reply, because of course Arthur isn’t in the car with Nash. Arthur had been very firm on this point: Nash was to go and watch the mark’s mother-in-law, while Arthur went back to the hotel. Like sleeping was something urgent that Arthur did. Like they hadn’t already spent all day sacked out in the hotel suite while Nash built, built, built, and Arthur picked, picked, picked. 

And sure, okay, so Nash had been the one who fucked up the Proclus job in Tokyo, and maybe he’d been the one who’d gotten caught trying to bolt to safety, too — but look where that had taken Cobb and Arthur, in turn. Top of the motherfucking dreamshare world, the two most famous and infamous people in a business where no one knew anyone’s names. 

(God knew where Cobb had got to afterwards — most people say he flew over the cuckoo’s nest, now holed up in some mental hospital in California.)

But these days Arthur can name his price, and he does. Nash knows full well that Arthur only deigned to take this job with him because the client is paying an insane amount of money — to Arthur — for his oversight. _Consulting fee_ , Arthur calls it loftily, like it’s some kind of goddamn corporate gold, sitting around and telling Nash what to do, day in and day out.

There’s no movement from the house. Nash pulls his cell phone out and calls Arthur, just to wake the asshole up.

But Arthur’s voice is alert, if snappish, on the other end. “What?” he says.

“If you’re awake anyway, why aren’t you down here?” Nash demands. “You should bring fried chicken. I’m starving.”

“Get off the phone and watch the house,” Arthur says, and then in the background there’s an electronic trill that Nash recognizes as an incoming skype alert. “Gotta go.”

“Wait, I have a question,” Nash extemporizes, because who the hell is Arthur talking to at this hour? It smells fishy to him.

There’s a pause, and the ringing stops, and the phone goes muffled like Arthur’s palm is over it. Nash can’t make out any of the words but Arthur’s tone is worlds apart from how he sounded a minute ago, warm and soft, and chased by a brief roll of laughter. He comes back on the line and his voice is steel again. Fucking robot. “Go on,” Arthur says.

Nash hasn’t got a question — or rather, he has a dozen of them, and he doesn’t know where to start. He opens his mouth and blurts it out: “If you’re planning to sell me out on this, if this is some kind of fucking payback, might I remind you that—“

“Get back to work,” Arthur says again. “It’s a personal call.”

“Personal, as in personal vendetta?” Nash clarifies narrowly, heart starting to race. “You said we were square for Tokyo, Arthur!”

“Oh, for fuck’s,” Arthur grouses, and in the background there’s a sudden yelp and clatter, someone else talking amusedly but indistinctly around the noise. “Do the work, Nash. If you manage to do it right, you get paid and we never speak again. Clear?” His words are hasty now, like he can’t wait to end this conversation.

“Was that a dog? Are you skyping your dog, Arthur?” Nash asks, grinning, relieved. There’s no answer; Arthur’s hung up.

It’s petty to feel smug over the whole thing, Nash supposes, but he allows himself that much. Arthur is the kind of loser who skypes his dog when he’s away from home. Probably his dog is his only friend. 

Money, Nash thinks, can’t buy happiness.

5.

“Sorry, sir, there’s,” says the security agent vaguely and backs the belt up again, frowning at the screen. “Did you say you didn’t have any electronics?”

“Just my phone and laptop, but they’re out of the bag already,” Arthur says, leaning against the side of the X-ray conveyor, awkwardly trying to slip his feet back into his shoes. He hates flying commercial, but nothing beats it for the anonymity. Heathrow heaves with people; Arthur’s a dot in the maelstrom, which is just as he likes it when he’s leaving home.

“There’s something else in there,” says the agent, voice mild but professional. “Sir, may I take a look?”

Arthur runs through the possibilities even as he nods. Did he leave any tech in his carry-on? He never would, normally, he’s meticulous as hell, but then it’s a bit chaotic at home these days. Whatever it is, it hadn’t been caught by the security screening in Nairobi, but that’s hardly surprising given the lax African system. Arthur keeps his face calm, a little impatient, a little bored, polite.

The agent unzips the bag and stuffs her hand into it, carelessly rumpling his neatly folded change of shirt and tie, displacing his shaving kit, his wrapped laptop cable, his small packets of office supplies. (They never have the pens he likes, even though it’s in his rider now. Arthur has a rider — that’s how much he can charge, these days.) “Ah,” says the agent, and pulls her hand back out.

“Oh, shit,” Arthur says, forgetting to be professional, because it’s that fucking horrible teddy bear, the one that sings the alphabet song in a cloying tinny voice, the one that Arthur fucking hates and that Eames therefore leaves in strategic locations around the house to annoy Arthur in unexpected moments.

 _Let’s sing together!_ chirrups the bear now, loud enough that heads are turning. Great.

“Here, it,” Arthur says, and snaps the thing away, turns it off with a practiced hand. His cheeks are flaming. Careful as he is about keeping Margaret away from his work, there’s no helping the way she crops up like this, catching him out, reminding him that wherever he goes in the whole wide world, there’s this tiny perfect person who’s taken over every inch of him — mind, body, soul.

“How old?” asks the agent, and now Arthur looks up again, he sees she’s smiling kindly.

Arthur’s embarrassment flees in a heartbeat. He recognizes a fellow parent. “She just turned eighteen months,” he says, smiling helplessly. “My husband, on the other hand,” he begins with somewhat feigned annoyance, because _Eames, yes, you got me, and you’re impossibly cute in spite of everything_.

“It’s nice, though,” says the agent, “isn’t it? Having a little reminder of home with you.”

Arthur squeezes the bear before stuffing it back into his bag, nodding along, doing his best to also stuff away thoughts of Margaret’s laughter and her big brown eyes, her fingertips poking into Arthur’s dimples as he grins at her, holds her, sways her side to side. “It is,” he agrees, hearing his own voice gruff, awkward. He zips the bag and slings it over his shoulder, hastens away towards his gate.

Two days later, he catches himself humming _Q-R-S, T-U-V_ while he cleans the PASIV. But Arthur just waggles his eyebrows at the amused faces of his chemist, his architect, his team, and gets back to work — _W-X, Y-and-Z_. 

He needs to be back at the hotel in an hour. He has a date with skype, and he cannot be late.


End file.
